Variable annuities appear to be causing stockholders at insurance companies like Hartford Financial Services, Lincoln National Corp. and Prudential Financial offering these products to develop a case of the jitters, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Shareholders fear the insurers will be forced to sell these products to generate the capital needed to meet regulatory requirements. With market declines, Fitch recently said capital needed to support the variable annuity industry had increased by as much as $15 billion this year.

What remains unclear, according to the article, is how much of a role VAs play in the companies’ financials and how they will manage the risks associated with these products in a new economic climate.

Yet another impact of the sagging economy on the insurance industry.

The fine folks leading American International Group seem to have failed miserably at understanding the financial markets - and now, public sentiment.

This week company officials were rightly taken to task by Congress for holding an expensive retreat in California, to the tune of $440,000, including $23,000 in spa treatments, at a posh resort. AIG officials, with the ink still wet on the $85 billion loan from the government, said the trip was for independent insurance agents for one of its subsidiaries, not its financial service executives. Read the rest of this entry »

So the annual Life Insurance Awareness Month ended with a bang Tuesday with news that actor Heath Ledger’s life insurance company, ReliaStar Life Insurance, is being sued in Los Angeles for not paying $10 million in benefits to his 2-year-old daughter Matilda Rose.

It seems the insurance company thinks the 28-year-old Australian actor found dead in his New York apartment in January may have committed suicide or lied on paperwork, either of which, of course, would mean no payout. Authorities ruled his death accidental from an overdose of painkillers and other medicines.

Read the rest of this entry »

Two interesting takes recently on the subject of increased government intervention into health insurance…

In California, lawmakers passed a law that requires health insurance carriers to spend a portion of premium dollars on patient care, resulting in a drop in the share prices of some of the nation’s largest health insurers, according to an article on Forbes.com.

In another turn, Republicans announced that the party is rejecting a push by some to inject the government more into the healthcare and health insurance industry.

On the one hand, we have a government move that hurts companies and the investment that many Americans make in those firms, and on the other hand we have a group that wants to limit how much the government should dip its hand into private business.

Just exactly who says independent insurance agents are not getting their fair share?

A representative of the IIABA (Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America), that’s who!

Wesley Bissett claims that insurance companies are requiring independent agents to do more, and should receive contingent commissions for their additional work. Read the rest of this entry »

A financial service firm has found a big, wide-open, no-one-seems-to-notice market for its long-term care insurance products. That new market for New Jersey-based Prudential Financial is the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender community, according to an article at IFAwebnews.com.

Oh, sure Prudential runs the risk of either torquing its current client base when they get wind of the new marketing push for LTC products or enraging the GLBT community if it has any missteps along the way. “Marketplace,” the public radio program, did a news report July 7 about how car companies are treading lightly for fear of one of those possible outcomes. One error and either the general public or the GLBT community is up in arms, and if you really strike out, both are mad.

Read the rest of this entry »